Creating a Second Chance
by play.read.write
Summary: "When we think there's no hope left, we keep looking until we find some." After seeing all the timelines end in her failure, Lightning is ready to give up. But maybe there is another way.


_**I own nothing of FFXIII. Though I would very much like to.**_

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Lightning stood before Etro's throne at the center of Valhalla. She held out her arm and closed her eyes. Focusing hard enough she could see the entire timeline. Not just one either, she could see them all. Every timeline currently in existence, paradox or not, was within sight. In all of them, she failed. In each and every timeline, Caius succeeded, Serah died, and the world collapsed into chaos. That was where they all ended. She could see no way around it.

She had given up hope. Serah was going to die. Time would collapse. Everything she fought for would fail. It was all her fault too. She had requested Serah's presence. She had sent Noel to her, and he had done as she asked. This would cause the death of Serah, the death of Etro, and her failure. It went even farther back then that though.

Etro's words had been that the timeline had already been warped. One who was to survive was had not. She herself was supposed to survive. She had failed, however, to stop the deaths of enough people. A portion of the chaos had been released and dragged her to Valhalla. Now she was stuck here, knowing what was going to happen and being unable to stop it. She had no hope anymore, no reason to continue the fight. All she could do now was take a note from Fang and Vanille. Turn to crystal and make herself immune to the ravages of time. Preserve Serah's memory forever as an eternal epitaph.

She held out her hand once more to view the timeline. One last look at all there was. She looked at her time as a child, when she was still Claire. She looked just after their parent's death, when she had first become Lightning. She looked at her time as a soldier, when she had devoted herself so much as to even exclude her sister. She looked at her time as a l'cie, when she had learned so much of herself.

She saw Snow, fighting to protect Cocoon and save Serah. She saw Sazh, fighting to save his son. She saw herself, growing out of her shell with the help of her new friends. She saw Hope, going from anger to determination as he accepted his lose and moved on. She saw Vanille, choosing to fight her focus rather than destroy a world. Finally she saw Fang, her first real friend in a long time, fighting to protect her family.

She moved on after that, she had been sucked into Valhalla and had no more of her own memories to view. Instead she watched Hope as he grew up and became director of the Academy. He did so much and had come so far from the frightened kid she had taken under her wing. He was still always going to be like a little brother to her though, just as Serah would always be her little sister.

At that she turned to Serah, traveling through time to find her. Using things she had learned from Lightning, Snow, and Noel to fight her way through powerful monsters and fix what Lightning couldn't. Rewriting the timeline and removing paradoxes. She was setting things back on track.

Snow was there too, the hero traveling through time for Serah. Lightning knew he was only doing this because of Serah. He was fixing his own paradoxes, correcting whatever he could. He looked like a chocobo though. Even so, Lightning knew his heart was in the right place. Despite everything, he was a good person.

The others had been scattered by now. Fang and Vanille were trapped in crystal, and would be for as long as she could see. Sazh, Dajh, and the chocobo were in Serendipity, the casino without time. Sazh would be set free eventually, just in time to help the others. After that she couldn't see. She didn't know what would happen once the Chaos descended onto the world, she couldn't see it. She assumed that either time would cease to exist, as in Valhalla, or everything would be destroyed. Neither option was palatable.

She couldn't see what was to come, only what is and what had been. The difference between the two was nonexistent in Valhalla. She wondered what the others would do if they could see her now. Snow would probably give some stupid speech about heroics. Hope would probably throw her own words back at her. Sazh would tell her everything was going to be fine, even though he had no reason to think so. Fang would probably tell her to pull herself back together and kick Caius' ass.

In the end there was nothing she could though. She couldn't leave Valhalla for more than a few moments before getting pulled back. When she did leave she couldn't go any farther back than the moment the Chaos entered the world, so she couldn't just give advice to herself before the fall.

She turned her gaze away from the timeline and ascended the stairs towards Etro's thrown. This was going to be it. In the end, Caius would succeed and Serah would die. Or had she already? Time was hard to follow in Valhalla. Even without looking to the timeline, Lightning could still see it. Serah and Noel would come to Valhalla to fight Caius. They would do what she couldn't and kill Caius, despite Noel's objections. Then there would be nothing. How many times had she fought Caius only for his Heart of Etro to stop him from dying? How many times had Serah and Noel done the same?

Lightning paused in her climb to rethink her question. How many times had Serah and Noel fought Caius? The only problem was that Caius was in Valhalla, fighting her. It was true that she was fighting Caius in Valhalla while Serah and Noel faced him in reality. That meant that two of him existed. This only occurred because Valhalla was separate from time, meaning he could exist in two places at once.

She pondered this for a moment. The reason Caius was a threat was not only his Heart of Etro or his formidable skill. It was because he was warping the timeline as he saw fit. He could do this because he existed both inside the timeline and outside it. The answer to her problems came through suddenly like a beacon in the night. What was stopping her from existing in both places?

Lightning hurried up the stairs and sat on the thrown. The problem was that the timeline was warped when she was dragged out of it. After she had been drawn into the history crux by the Chaos, Etro had guided her to Valhalla. Now she could travel through the timeline, so long as she returned to Etro's side to defend her. She also couldn't travel any farther back than before the Chaos had entered the world. However, for a moment, she and the Chaos had both existed in the world before she was pulled away. If she could stop that moment, then she should still exist in Valhalla due to its separation from the timeline, but she would also fix the original twist in fate. She had learned to rely on others while she was a l'cie. As it turns out, this was a moment when that lesson was better left unused. Relying on others would get Serah killed. Relying on herself could just save everything.

Closing her eyes, Lightning focused. She saw the timeline, everything that had happened and would happen. As she had done countless times before she found a point and focused on it. She had only traveled a few times, but it was more than enough experience. She found the moment the Chaos entered the world, the moment she needed to be at. She found herself, standing with the others looking up at the crystal pillar, the place that she needed to be at. Concentrating on that very point she launched herself into the timeline.

Unlike when she had done so before, she found she couldn't get through. The Chaos was not yet thick enough in the world to let her reach the point in time she sought. She threw herself against the timeline again, she had just regained hope, and she wasn't going to give up now. Once again she was denied. Third times the charm she thought as she threw herself against it again. This time she broke through.

She found it was more difficult to move than she expected. She was at a point in time where the Chaos she got most of her power from was thin. As she moved forward things got a little easier, but that only meant the Chaos was growing, and her window of opportunity was slipping away. She kept her eyes on the crystal pillar as she ran forward. Each step was easier than the last and soon enough she could see a group of people ahead. Another moment and she recognized them.

It was herself, Serah, Sazh, Dajh, Hope, and Snow. However before she could reach them she sensed it coming. The Chaos was growing fast. She shouted at them to run but they didn't hear her. She should have known it wasn't going to work. The timeline never showed another possibility for this moment. She was going to be too late.

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Lightning looked up at the crystal pillar Vanille and Fang had made. They had sacrificed themselves for a world not their own. Beside her she heard Hope. "I guess they meant for this to be goodbye." He said, "But then again, we've changed our fate before, haven't we?"

"Hey now, don't get sad. We got a wedding to plan." Snow said.

"You don't waste any time, do you?" Hope asked with a grin."

"Nope." Snow answered. He then turned to Lightning and added, "I will make her happy. I promise you."

"I believe you." Lightning said. She began to tune out the rest of the conversation as she started walking back towards the pillar with the others. She let herself fall back some as she looked at the point just below where the pillar met Cocoon, the point where she somehow knew Fang and Vanille to be. They had given up so much; they deserved more than just another stay in crystal stasis. In her head she made a silent promise, "I will get you out of there." She could have sworn she heard Fang's voice telling not to. Telling her to live her own life and be happy. It was probably just her imagination though.

All of a sudden something felt wrong. Her instincts were telling her to run and she didn't know why. She glanced over her shoulder and saw it; a black cloud coming from out of the earth, and it was moving towards them. She took off running, but it was already on her. It moved around her as she ran forward, shouting for the others to do the same, but they didn't hear her. Despite her running, they were getting farther away, fading out of view. Her legs came out from under her as the darkness pulled her down. She tried to crawl forward, to pull away, but it was too powerful. The ground beneath her collapsed and she fell in, barely managing to hang on. Her feet kicked, searching for footholds, as her hands gripped the ground and sought out anything she could grab ahold of. The darkness wrapped around her neck and she moved a hand to try and pull it away. With only one arm left she couldn't hold on and was pulled back. She fell into the pit as the darkness wrapped around her.

As she fell, out of nowhere, she felt something cold and hard wrap around her wrist. Her arm was jerked as she came to sudden stop. The darkness continued to try and pull her down and she was sure her arm was going to be torn off. Looking away from the pit she saw what had ahold of her. It was a hand; it was just wearing gloves and armor. She felt herself being pulled away out of the pit, the darkness falling away the higher she got. Finally breaking out of her stupor, she looked at the person who was pulling her up. It was definitely the last person she expected to see.

Reaching up she grabbed ahold of the ledge she had been pulled off of to help pull herself up. She felt the last of the darkness fall away from her and was surprised by her sudden increase in speed as she was yanked upward even higher than the ledge. She landed on her feet and then fell to her knees; the darkness was still all around them. "We have to get out of here." She said to the woman who looked exactly like her. Explanations could wait; she had to make sure the others were safe first.

"Go." The armored woman said, "I have to make sure the Chaos does not proceed."

"You saved my life, I'm not just gonna leave you here." Lightning said.

"You must. You have to go. You have to save them." The other woman said.

"Save who?" Lightning asked. She didn't like this, they needed to leave now.

"Everyone. If you do not go know, if you get taken, it will set off a chain of events that will destroy everything. The world as you know it will collapse and Serah will die."

"How do you know that?"

"Because I have seen it. I am you after you fall into the Chaos. Saving myself, saving you, from that is my last hope to save everything."

"That's impossible, it can't be true."

"Do you truly still believe anything is impossible?" The armored Lightning smirked, "I really was stubborn, wasn't I?" She grabbed ahold of her other self with one hand. "This hurts me exactly as much as it will hurt you." Then she threw the younger woman out and away from the Chaos. The ground gave out beneath her feet and she fell. The Chaos claimed her once again, dragging her back to Valhalla.

The force behind the throw was beyond anything Lightning thought she was capable of. She flew past the others and actually saw the looks on their faces change as she went by. She flipped through the air and landed on her feet facing them, sliding a few feet when she did. Her eyes shot up and she looked at the point she had been thrown from. The others quickly followed her line of sight, just in time to see the last of the Chaos receding into the earth. When it was gone there was no sign it had ever even been there. For a moment no one moved or spoke. Then Sazh broke the silence. "Ok, what was that?" He asked. All eyes turned to Lightning.

"I don't know." She answered. After a moment of everyone staring at her she added, "I'll tell all of you what happened later. Until then, we have work to do." She gestured at the people coming off of Cocoon.

"Fine." Serah said, "But you will tell us what happened." The younger Farron then led the way forward with Snow right behind her. Everyone else soon followed, though this time Lightning was sure not to trail behind.

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_**So this has been in my head a while, so I finally took and wrote down. I may be bending some of FF's time travel rules here, but I don't care. This is just a one-shot, at least for the moment. If for some reason I get a burst of inspiration for a post-game adventure, I'll come back to this. No promises though. I hope you enjoyed this, and please review. Whether it's an in depth review or a tiny little comment, all reviews help. Thank you for reading.**_


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